Burnt Orange Skies
by pondglorious
Summary: In which the Doctor and Clara attempt to discuss what happened at Trenzalore.


"Clara," Said the Doctor in a very serious manner one afternoon as he was fiddling with buttons on the TARDIS console, his tone a stark contrast with the one he had just been using to describe giddily to her the radioactive sand in space Flordia, "How much do you remember?"

She had become disinterested in his rantings long ago, and was in no mood to be patient with him now.

"Of what, exactly?" she sighed, not tearing her eyes away from the book she was reading while she leaned against the opposite side of the console. "You're going to have to be a bit more specific."

He was hesitant. He couldn't think of how to bring up the sensitive subject they had both been avoiding for weeks. They hadn't spoken about it except briefly the night it happened, it was weighing down on them both all too heavily.

"Of- you know- all those lives. Thousands of echos of you. How much to remember of them?"

"Oh." She tried not to sound surprised, and her reply was as relaxed and casual as if they talked about such things everyday. "Most of it. Bits and pieces. I do remember you, and that ridiculous scarf, and all the curly hair. Oh, and that celery pin! I am most definitely not going to forget all that. Well..." She smirked, looking him up and down, "At least there's been a bit of improvement since then." The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Improvement, really?" He gave her the bright smile of a child on christmas morning.

"Oh, don't get too excited now. I said a bit. Not much, mind you. And how much do you remember, Doctor?"

He looked flustered, for he had not expected this conversation to be as light hearted as it was turning out to be.

Eventually he managed to reply, "Of- of you? Why...I do remember you snogging me in Victorian London." He teased in an attempt to one-up her.

She remained frustratingly unmoved, as always. Clara was far too hard to impress. "You blushed." She reminded him.

He waved away her comment. "I do remember...something else, though."

"I'd hope so. I didn't do all that saving and dying just to have it all go unnoticed by-"

The Doctor winced at hearing her talk of dying so nonchalantly, so he cut her off mid-sentence.

"You were there, on Gallifrey. You gave me the TARDIS."

She took a deep breath and wondered why on Earth she hadn't seen this coming; she couldn't have expected to avoid the subject forever, of course he'd come asking questions sooner or later. Living a thousand lives to save someone isn't just something one forgets about.

"Yes, I helped you steal it, that is. You know, it should really learn to appreciate me. After all, where would it be without me? It should be grateful!"

He scoffed angrily,"No wonder she doesn't like you, you keep calling her an 'it'!"

The Doctor managed to compose himself again after noticing Clara's disapproving gaze.

"Anyways, as I was saying...You were on Gallifrey. You were Gallifreyan..." There was a hint of pride in his voice. "At some point, Clara Oswald was a Time Lady." His beaming gaze turned suddenly serious as he tried to read her indifferent expression. His eyebrows were knitted together, his mouth a hard line, his forehead creating dark creases as if he were in deep contemplation. Quickly, she tore away from his stern glare.

"Finally found an equal match, eh?" She whispered, her voice cracking. Without warning tears streamed down her cheeks in a steady waterfall, and she turned herself further from him and prayed he wouldn't notice. Though she would never admit it, she hated feeling vulnerable, in the presence of him especially.

When she finally spoke up once more, her voice was weak and almost inaudible. "I remember the glowing orange sky at night." The Doctor stepped behind her now, drawing closer to where she stood gripping the edge of the console as if to steady herself.

"It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. And the trees with the silver leaves, and the bright red grass, and the second sun rising in the south, and everything would shine, like an inferno suffocating the landscape..."

The Doctor was in awe, hearing someone talk about Gallifrey to him for the first time in an uncountable amount of years. He moved right behind her now, so as to drink in every word she whispered, but she had run out of things to say, and panic rose up in her- she couldn't recall anything else at all.

The Doctor noticed and said quietly, "Shh, it's alright, don't panic. Your brain can't retain so much life, so many memories...you'll only remember bits and pieces, like you said. Here, let me help you," He attempted in comfort and picked up where she had left off, "And the vast mountain ranges," He finished, "And the rocks that were red and brown and purple and gold. And the mountains that were capped with snow, and the sun would shine in the mornings and the snow would glow gold."

Clara stood speechless and overwhelmed as he muttered the words so close to her ear. She felt as if her mind were collapsing in on itself after blocking out all these memories for so long. She felt light headed as she had that night when she saved him, and had fainted in his arms from the intensity of it all.

Slowly she turned around to him, and he remained pressed up tightly against her. He saw her big brown eyes glistening with tears and a lump arose in his throat. The Doctor brought up a hand to caress her face, and ran a thumb soothingly across her cheek. Clara closed her eyes and didn't hesitate to lean into his gentle touch.

"All those lives. Thousands of them, living and dying, my Clara. Just to save me."

"Oh, I didn't do it all for you," she lied, "There was the whole universe to think of."

"But you still saved me, all those times...I realize I haven't properly thanked you."

She laughed despite the tears that still relentlessly fell and stained his hand that still brushed against her cheek. "No, you haven't. Might want to get on that, or I won't be as impulsive next time."

It hadn't really been impulsive, though; had she a million chances to do it over, she would've chosen sacrifice every time.

"No need to worry about that, on my watch there will be no next time. But I still don't know how I'll ever repay you."

Despite his hand at her face, and his breath so close that it mingled with hers, and his body pressed so tightly against her that she could feel the whole length of his scrawny build, she knew he thought nothing of their timid embrace. To him, it was simply two friends seeking comfort in each other.

"I can think of a few ways." She breathed.

And still he remained oblivious, but Clara didn't expect anything else.

Deliberately she stood on her toes and reached up to press her lips against his. His hand dropped as they touched and he clasped them firmly at his sides, his fingers clenching into fists.

Well, it's better than the flailing, Thought Clara.

It was not until she wrapped her arms around his neck and drew his face closer to hers that the Doctor managed to kiss back, and instinctively brought his hands up around her waist, but he lingered them there, barely even touching her.

She parted her lips just far enough from his to breathe mischievously, "Oh, I know you can do better than that, Chin Boy."

The Doctor, who would never dare back down from the challenges of Clara Impossible Oswald, gladly obliged to her daring whisper and took her face in his hands roughly and awkwardly, and brought her lips fully against his, not holding himself back this time. The kiss deepened as they hungrily indulged themselves in what they'd never dared to before; his hands bravely strayed away from her waist and wandered to areas yet undiscovered by him, and she raked her hands in his hair and whimpered softly. They had now backed up completely against the console, causing a quite a quite uncomfortable position to result. The book she had previously been reading knocked the ground with a soft clunk, but that was no cause of distraction for them. Impulsively he dragged his hands under her thighs and hoisted her up to sit on the flat part of the console, and she wrapped her legs eagerly around his waist in response so that he was trapped between her legs. He broke the kiss to trail more along her jaw and down her neck. Clara moaned in surprise; partly because of how good it felt and partly because in her wildest dreams, she'd never imagined the Doctor could stop his flailing long enough to be properly kiss her back, let alone this. She brought his face urgently back up to hers again and wrapped her legs tighter around him, her whole body throbbing and tingling intensely.

Suddenly her whole mind was flooded with questions of Time Lord anatomy. Was he even compatible with a human in that way? But he had to be, why else would his hands be wandering about her body with a seemingly even more intense desire than even she possessed at the moment? And she had been a Time Lady once, shouldn't she know? But the only thing she could remember now was the burnt orange sky and the sun bursting over the mountains of Gallifrey, and her mind was spinning for a different reason that it had been before.

It was only when she began to fumble with the buttons on his shirt that they were broken out of their trance by the last thing on their minds at the moment: Water.

They had no time to react before suddenly they were drenched, and they both jumped back in shock, wondering where the hell that came from. They both glanced up at the ceiling long enough to discover the source of the freezing liquid.

"Since when does the TARDIS have water sprinklers?!" Squeaked Clara incredulously through gritted teeth so as not to catch the pouring water in her mouth.

"I could ask the same question!" shouted the Doctor through the sound of the rain hitting the floor in stark contrast with the quiet hum of the TARDIS that had previously been the only sound around them.

Clara hopped down from the console frustratedly. "Oh, I knew it didn't like me!"

"Well maybe if you stopped calling her 'it'-"

"Oh, shut up, Doctor! Run!"

She grabbed his hand and pulled him down to the entrance that led into the labyrinth of corridors that made up the rest of the TARDIS, and they found that the hallways were spouting out the cold, relentless liquid as well. Clara let out a giggle at the ridiculousness of it all, and soon they were laughing like children and running through the corridors hand in hand, their amused shrieks echoing all throughout the passageways. When, finally, they reached Clara's room, they ducked in and didn't bother to turn the light on as they collapsed on the bed, still laughing, but exhausted.

Suddenly the laughter died and they were left laying next to each other, trying to catch their breath, and the faint echo of water hitting the ground is the only sound besides their panting.

It was the Doctor who spoke up first, and his tone was unpleasant and grave. "Clara...We shouldn't- We can't-" He struggled to find the right words. "You're human,"

Clara frowned. Definitely not the right words. "You say that as if it's a bad thing."

"But it's not-it's the best thing about you. You are my impossible girl, and without you, I wouldn't be here right now, and that's only because perfectly ordinary Clara decided to be brave..." He had so much more to say, so much more to explain, but he couldn't possibly know how to tell her that he was afraid. A secret, selfish part of him had hoped that because she kept coming back, maybe it meant she couldn't die. Just maybe she could be the one who promised forever and actually meant it. This almost subconscious sliver of hope had allowed the Doctor to let himself become vulnerable, and he had foolishly let himself fall completely for her. But when it turned out she was his perfectly ordinary Clara after all, there was no way he could even consider being disappointed, for her sacrifice had pushed him to the edge until he could no longer deny to himself that he loved her without a shadow of doubt.

Clara, in turn, thought she knew better than to fall for a 900 year old alien. It had disaster written all over it, but something had happened between the time when he turned up on her doorstep in that ridiculous monk robe and when she flung herself into his arms on the night of her sacrifice, and now that she had given him her heart, there was no way to get it back. He had given her everything she had ever wanted. 101 places to see. She'd seen more in the few fleeting months she'd been running with him than most people did in their entire lifetime, and she had lived more lives than she could count.

Clara didn't want to talk about it, not now. She felt an aching pain in her heart at the thought that their relationship was doomed, and had been from the start. Luckily she didn't have to talk about it, for the Doctor sensed her reluctance and decided to be brave.

Slowly He rolled over closer to Clara and said nothing before he pressed his lips to hers softly once again, and they continued their previously brief tryst with a new sort of slow, calm tenderness.

All too eagerly he fumbled with the buttons and zippers of her dress, still retaining the sort of awkwardness that could be made out as inexperience, but she knew better than to think that after 900 years of life inexperience was even an option.

Climbing on top of him, she straddled his waist as he still attempted to remove the dress that was now only half clinging to her body. With a strength yet unknown to both of them, she forced his hands away from her clothes and pinned them down on either side of him, and leaned so close down to his face that their noses touched. The normal careless humor had returned to her voice. "Bit too keen, aren't you?" She whispered with a smirk. "Just remember, I'm the boss."

Gradually their clothing fully shed, and the Doctor gratefully savored seeing so much of her flesh that was normally covered to the point of an almost frustrating decency by high-necked dresses and tights and sweaters; he seeked a guilty pleasure in noticing all of the scars and blemishes and goosebumps rising on her skin that made her perfectly imperfect and human Clara, and in return she appreciated the veins that stood out blue on his hands and arms, and his rib cage that stuck out at odd angles and the rest of the flesh and bone that made up his anatomy.

Eventually all her questions of Time Lord mechanics were answered, and as it turned out, he was more than compatible with a human.

…

It was only after that they realized at some point the steady flow of water from outside had ceased, but they had been far too distracted by each other to notice. Clara smiled and blushed into the darkness as she laid her head against him.

"I think we can conclude, Doctor, that it is a snog box," she mumbled into his chest.

He chuckled. "I think that was a bit more than snogging."

"Ooh, would you rather me call it something a bit more crude?" She retorted.

"Such as?"

"Hmmph" She buried her face in his chest as if such a thing would help the thought process.

"A shag box."

"A Shag Box?" He cried incredulously, but laughed again. "That's embarrassing. Now you're just being ridiculous."

She laughed a bit at herself and said, "That's why you love me."

He was taken aback for a moment, and suddenly his memory was thrown to when their lips had first met for the very first time in Victorian London; He hadn't even known who she was then.

"Who says I love you?" He replied calmly.

"I think you just did."


End file.
